09/06/2012

People have been complaining about a new ad campaign by the department store Harvey Nichols. It's a series of ads showing a woman wetting herself.

Talk about understanding your target market. Some of the middle-class middle-aged women who shop there were probably so shocked by this they re-enacted it on the spot.

Tens of thousands of flyers featuring the image have been posted and emailed to customers in Britain to promote the shop's summer sale. The ad slogan reads: "The Harvey Nichols Sale. Try to contain your excitement."

I hope this doesn't catch on. There'll be Primark ads of people shitting themselves. Although with the price of the pants in there it's cheaper to do that than to actually use the loo and wipe.

Some people were offended by the Harvey Nichols campaign. Student Danielle West, 21, from Birmingham, said: "Seeing something like this makes me think twice about buying things from there." Certainly anything that's been returned.

Someone on Twitter said: "That absolutely does not make me the slightest bit inclined to shop there!" And if you do, you know not buy by anything in orange or light blue. It really shows up the piddle. Sales of black and dark blue trouser suits will rocket.

Defending its latest ads, a spokeswoman for Harvey Nichols said: "The images in our advertising were designed to be a visual representation of a well-known phrase."

And that phrase was "I could piss myself with excitement"?

Still, it could've been worse. They could've made a poster of a more commonly used expression of surprise. "Well, bugger me!"